News – Google Street View Trekker

Google has announced that their Street View Trekker backpack will be available to borrow by organisations including tourism boards, non-profit organisations, government agencies, universities or research groups. The Trekker bacpack was designed to enable the recording of areas of the world where the Google Street View Car could not reach, so that the imigary could be incorporated in Street View within Google Maps.

The Street View Trekker backpack consists of a dome of 15 5-megapixel digital cameras which record images every 2.5 seconds as a person walks forward, two GPS receivers which log the location data, two SSD (Solid State Drivves) which store the data and dual lithium batteries which allow 8 hours of recording. The images are procecssed into 360 panoramas when the system is returned to the office. The system weighs 42 pounds.

Potential
With a partnership with Google heritage bodies have the ability of recording walkthoughs of important monuments easily with advanced digital technology which can be incorporated into the free Google Maps system; and as of December 2014 Historic Scotland have taken advantage of this showcasing 16 of their properties.

The system provides quality site tours of important cultural heritage which can be viewed by anyone using the Street View system.

Limitations
As the system is ground based only views from this angle will be recorded, meaning that informaion from other angles is lost.

The cameras are only 5-megapixel, which work well for the intended purpose of creating web accessible 360° panoramas, but limits their usefullness for other techniques such as photogrammetry.

BrickPi

The BrickPi is a Kickstarter project by Dexter Industries to build a module that connects to a Raspberry Pi and can control LEGO Mindstorms sensors and motors, it comes with a case which can connect to LEGO Technical parts and allows the construction of robotic projects.

It is open source hardware and software.

http://www.dexterindustries.com/BrickPi/

The BrickPi system costs $140.

LEGO Mindstorms
The LEGO Mindstorms system was introduced in 1998 giving the ability to create robotic systems using a series of sensors, motors and LEGO technical parts. It works both as a toy and as an educational tool

The technology centres on the intelligent brick which attaches to and controls a set of modular sensors and motors, all of which can be connected to LEGO parts from the Technics line allowing the creations of robotic systems.

A large community of both professional and hobbyists has built up around the technology, sharing design and programming techniques.

A standard LEGO Mindstorms set costs £215.

A number of LEGO accessories have been created for photographers including a robotized panoramic head and turntable for object photography.

LEGO is even being used to create a LEGO drone in a kickstarter project.

Benefits
The LEGO Mindstorms system has many great potential using the LEGO Technical system to create complex mechanisms.

The ability to connect this to the Raspberry Pi combines the abilities of the two systems, allowing the Raspberry Pi to control robotics in a simple way which requires no understanding of electronics, while still providing all of the abilities of the Raspberry Pi.

LEGO has also been demonstrated to be an excellent tool in the construction of products including turntables, which would be useful in artifact photography, and in the creation of motorised panoramic camera heads. The inclusion of a Raspberry Pi would increased processing power and control to this ability.

Limitations
If you already own a LEGO Mindstorms kit and want to use the technology in combination with a Raspberry Pi, then this kit is very useful. But if you have to buy both the kits and a Raspberry Pi then you would have to pay quite a lot of money. It would be cheaper to learn electronics and buy the individual parts that you required.